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Bloodletters ABSOLUTELY have an edge over Berzerkers in a few match ups.

They have ap -3 which basically laughs in the face of TEQs and heavy armored units, they can deepstrike (and for 1 more cp charge 3d6), and their 5++ invuln makes them suprisingly frustrating to remove from the board. Skarbrand running up (or even just deepstriking onto) units of bloodletters is a horrifying prospect. But berzerkers with skarbrand are just as much fun, allowing you to fight 5 times total with axe/chain sword zerks...Twice.


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I need help figuring out the last of my Daemons list. Im facing Necrons in a friendly 2k, and ive got 25 points left to spend.

I could add a few more bloodletters, add some blue horrors to my brim squads, upgrade my skullmaster to a bloodthrone, or leave 20 reserve points to split two of my pink horrors in my 30 blob to keep it above the 20 threshhold for that 3 assault profile.

What do ya'll think is the best use of my 25?

I’ve heard it said several times that Plague Drones are undefcosted, but I don’t see why. I use mine mainly to provide mobile cover and eat Overwatch for my flying daemon princes, and they never seem to do much on their own.

Can someone explain why they’re better than the equivalent points in Plaguebearers? Each costs roughly the same as 5 Plaguebearers (34 vs 35 points) but the PBs with a Scrivener are almost as fast (7” vs 10”) and have as many melee attacks, at a higher strength with a herald, albeit only for 1 damage without buffs rather than 2. The drones have a 5 toughness vs plaguebearers’ 4, but a big blob of plaguebearers are -1 to hit, and drones are a lot more vulnerable to multiple damage attacks. Ignoring terrain and units from the Fly keyword is useful, but their bases are so large that they’re not going to bypass competently placed screens. What’s their big benefit?

Atlatl Jones wrote:
I’ve heard it said several times that Plague Drones are undefcosted, but I don’t see why. I use mine mainly to provide mobile cover and eat Overwatch for my flying daemon princes, and they never seem to do much on their own.

Can someone explain why they’re better than the equivalent points in Plaguebearers? Each costs roughly the same as 5 Plaguebearers (34 vs 35 points) but the PBs with a Scrivener are almost as fast (7” vs 10”) and have as many melee attacks, at a higher strength with a herald, albeit only for 1 damage without buffs rather than 2. The drones have a 5 toughness vs plaguebearers’ 4, but a big blob of plaguebearers are -1 to hit, and drones are a lot more vulnerable to multiple damage attacks. Ignoring terrain and units from the Fly keyword is useful, but their bases are so large that they’re not going to bypass competently placed screens. What’s their big benefit?

Fly alone is huge.

T5 vs T4 is pretty significant.

7" vs 10" is not 'almost as fast' in any way. Drones are 50% faster. And can fly over obstacles and terrain and units.

Same strength if you're counting herald buffs for one you have to apply it to both, even if it's marginally easier to keep PBs in the aura.

So yeh, there's quite a lot.

I don't think drones are undercosted though, I think they're pretty much right as they are. They don't perform the same role as PB's really.

TBH the biggest weakness of PDs for me is the (1) lack of a drone poxbringer, and (2) the fact that it wouldn’t affect the fixed str attacks anyway, and (3) their low CP yield

Well,

I'm a little miffed that they nerfed my ability to get a 2++. It was good, but didn't strike me as overpowered within our codex. And cost CP plus was only good for a phase. Alas!

Yeah but our dp's are safe! They even mention they are different sheets so are ok. Sweet.

Still, it does suck we cant get pinks to 3++ or loc to 2++. Heck, we even cant get bloodthirsters to 3++...

They are "safe" but also nerfed. Everyone got nerfed in this FAQ except Slaanesh again (which as a Slaanesh player I sadistically chuckle about but... you know, pleasure from pain!)

They're gonna need to lift us all up a bit in CA 2018 I think.

If you didn't notice... Fly, for the purposes of moving over units and terrain only works in the MOVEMENT phase now. So your giant flying Bloodthirster now has to walk when charging. Thus, units in the way of his enormous base now block his movement. Same with Tzeentch flyers, and all of our Daemon Princes.

This, again, emphasizes the fast movement for Slaanesh... our Keeper is smaller so can manuever better but it is still not a great unit.

Pinks will still be at an effective 3++, no worries there (5 improved to a 4, add one to save rolls).

I don’t know what to replace my LoC with now, any thoughts? Capped at a 3++ makes him less survivable, which is bad for my purposes.

I’m toying with a Plague Hulk and 2x3 Plague Drones, or two Hulks. While I lose the psychic prowess of the LoC, I think I actually GAIN survivability, as well as a bigger melee threat. Thoughts?
Or maybe some Blightlord Termies? I can rasily do a Nurgle Battalion since I already am running Nurglings.

No pinks are a flat 4++ at the moment. The strat will not put them to 3++. They dont have Ephemeral Form. It will work to turn blues to a 4++ though, for what that is worth....

So is it just me or does gw hardcore nerf daemons even harder Everytime and faq/can drops? I loved my daemons at start of 8th and now they are shelved marked as unplayable(other than nurgle)

They are not unplayable but they are far from easy to use in any way other than soup n salad.

DPs can't now interact with ruins outside the movement phase. They can't charge through walls, they can't charge up ruins, they can't charge through models. It is a HUGE nerf.

Yeah, DP's were Nerfed; still usable...ish. If anything this buffed armies that rely on lots of Chaff around a single huge model against anything that doesn't have a lot of guns to clear house.

Demons are in a rough spot right now. Top it off with a direct nerf to all Tzeentch demons because the LoC could get a 2++ (but still maybe kill one thing a turn if your lucky...)

Kneejerk doesn't begin to describe some of the stuff in this FAQ. They could have easily just changed the LoC robe relic to say "this unit cannot benefit from the Warp Surge strategem" to nerf his 2++, but allow Pinks to get the 3++ which makes them a good unit (now a 4++ is a lot worse...). It doesn't nerf any of the other 3 gods, except for Bloodthirsters with Armor of Scorn. Now I doubt we will ever see one at all

also sucks how the new turn 2 cover strategem is utterly useless to us. Would have been nice if it was just +1 to all saves to a max of 2+ 3++ during enemy turn 1

would be better give -1 to hit instead +1 to save so every model in the game can benefit (beside titanics), now you have guardsmen saving at 4+ (seems not a lot but when you have lot of models on the table that's huge) as if guard needed help, IG is already playing another game.

 blackmage wrote:
would be better give -1 to hit instead +1 to save so every model in the game can benefit (beside titanics), now you have guardsmen saving at 4+ (seems not a lot but when you have lot of models on the table that's huge) as if guard needed help, IG is already playing another game.

That'd be more beneficial to Daemons, but it also means that against certain armies (like Raven Guard or Alpha Legion for instance) you'd never want to take first turn because it'll just be wasted shooting at enemies with -2 to hit against them. That's a bit excessive.

Yeah, but cover doesnt mean jack to deamon armies. It doesnt effect our invulnerable save so..... blah?

it is not, think about Alaitoc it has already it. that -1 would let assault armies to pass that critical 1st turn, now Alpha legion and RG lost their infiltration rule so they aren't anymore so broken, +1 to save matter almost nothing unless you play lot of footslogging power armors or many veichles.

No more 3++? Well, there goes Zara, falling right out the floor of ‘maybe nearly viable in some friendlies’.

Is there *any* good news for the children of the Warp, here?

 lindsay40k wrote:
No more 3++? Well, there goes Zara, falling right out the floor of ‘maybe nearly viable in some friendlies’.

Is there *any* good news for the children of the Warp, here?

As far as I can see it's flat nerfs to every unit. Even DP's are now significantly less powerful, and they were one of the only consistently good units we had.

Niiru wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
No more 3++? Well, there goes Zara, falling right out the floor of ‘maybe nearly viable in some friendlies’.

Is there *any* good news for the children of the Warp, here?

As far as I can see it's flat nerfs to every unit. Even DP's are now significantly less powerful, and they were one of the only consistently good units we had.

We did get one minuscule buff. We can now heroic intervene into melee if close enough and the opponent hasn't charged. But it's barely worth mentioning.

Mostly Nurgle/Nurgling-based armies still work though don't they? Especially since Nurglings get to keep their T1 infiltrate and deploy anywhere on the board outside 9".

Btw, mathhammer says a Greater Brass Scorpion with Daemonforge does 38 damage in one round of CC with a knight. Khorne seems very good at killing knights.

operkoi wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
No more 3++? Well, there goes Zara, falling right out the floor of ‘maybe nearly viable in some friendlies’.

Is there *any* good news for the children of the Warp, here?

As far as I can see it's flat nerfs to every unit. Even DP's are now significantly less powerful, and they were one of the only consistently good units we had.

We did get one minuscule buff. We can now heroic intervene into melee if close enough and the opponent hasn't charged. But it's barely worth mentioning.

I was under the impression that we already could do that, and that GW just clarified it.

Niiru wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
So has anyone found literally any use for Bloodcrushers besides mandatory brigade slots? I've tried mathhammering them against bloodletters in pretty much every toughness/wounds/save ratio, and the Letters are always either comparable or better, and the Bloodletters have the benefit of being troops and being harder to kill.

One advantage of course, is that you can paint and play with 3 cool bloodcrusher models, instead of 20 samey bloodletter models. Not a competitive viewpoint (in which case, again, you should be playing 90 bloodletters and 120 cultists) but for us filthy casuals it's a pretty important point

This hits me so hard. There is so much Khorne stuff that I'd buy if only I could imagine them seeing some time on the table.

So ok. Bloodcrushers are worse than Bloodletters. But... how much worse exactly? Surely I wouldn't be crippling myself too badly if I ran a unit of Bloodcrushers?

Bloodletters are more durable against every weapon in the game. They're twice as durable vs plasma and 5 times as durable against OC plasma and 7 times as durable against anti-tank.
They are also troops with obsec and give CP because of battalions.
You also get more models to cover more board space and surround people better. You also get smaller bases that can fit through gaps.
You also get a buff for having 20+ models in the unit.
You do 2x more damage against targets without big invul saves and you do just more damage in general against everything in the game.

Turns out GW sucks at balancing. Who knew. There is no reason why these units, that do basically the same thing, should be THIS far apart in terms of viability.

 rvd1ofakind wrote:
Bloodletters are more durable against every weapon in the game. They're twice as durable vs plasma and 5 times as durable against OC plasma and 7 times as durable against anti-tank.
They are also troops with obsec and give CP because of battalions.
You also get more models to cover more board space and surround people better. You also get smaller bases that can fit through gaps.
You also get a buff for having 20+ models in the unit.
You do 2x more damage against targets without big invul saves and you do just more damage in general against everything in the game.

Turns out GW sucks at balancing. Who knew. There is no reason why these units, that do basically the same thing, should be THIS far apart in terms of viability.

It's more than enough to push me towards scrapping the idea of taking any daemons at all. And if I'm not taking daemons, then it makes chaos a much less interesting option to build an army with in general.

Pretty much leaves just daemon princes (also heavily nerfed) and forgeworld dreadnoughts and a couple hundred cultists.

Might just bite the bullet and start an imperial army instead. Always tried to avoid it as we already have 4 out of 5 armies in our gaming group as imperial of one sort or another.

Such a disappointment that 8th hasn't managed to live up to the expectations of balance.

Oh imperial is not a good alternative. Unless you like looking at 11 codexes and thinking "which 2-3 units are the best" x 3 to make my army. Also IG is a must in every single list.

The truly great armies are Tyranids and Dark Eldar/Eldar.

Just won a doubles 30-40 team tourney with battalion of nurglings and 2 poxbringers and crusader teamed with spearhead of crawlers winged prince with talons and a helverin - 1600 points.

The nurglings stole so many vp and stayed alive way way to long it was awesome.

Renegade knight strat is also damn good, being able to use it in 2 phases in your turn can be clutch(it was).

Did a batrep in batrep forum!!!

All hail Papa Nurgle!!!!!!

Thanks for the deepstrike nerf GW!
Thanks for the cover save strategem GW!
Thanks for fixing the OP lord of change GW!
Thanks for the "only one attempt to cast a spell" GW!
Thanks for the fly nerf GW!
Thanks for the brimestone nerf GW!
Thanks for the changeling nerf GW!
And thank you very much for the unreliable mono tzeentch melee strategem

Best regards
Former tzeentch player and warhammer miniatures buyer

 lindsay40k wrote:
No more 3++? Well, there goes Zara, falling right out the floor of ‘maybe nearly viable in some friendlies’.

Is there *any* good news for the children of the Warp, here?

Not exactly competitive but just noticed Zara can still ignore terrain while charging so might catch a casual opponent with their pants down so to speak.